Tag Archives: Paul Copan

There are some beliefs that are so morally reprehensible that to dignify them with even a one-word response would only add to their offense, yet so common among otherwise decent people that one feels compelled spend a thousand words refuting them.

The list of such beliefs includes the conviction that African-Americans were better off enslaved in the South than left to their own devices in Africa; the assertion that poor people are just lazy; and the cultural attitudes behind the “honor killing” of rape victims.

Akin to these, but even higher on the list, is the belief advanced by no less a Christian luminary than C.S. Lewis, that “the gates of hell are locked on the inside” because the souls confined there for eternity are in rebellion against God and do not wish to be with him in heaven.

Men get a bad rap for being sex-obsessed — only concerned with how many notches they have on their bedposts. Yes, sex is important to men, but let’s remember that most men would literally risk their lives to protect their girlfriends or families. In fact, even men who “act like animals” would do this, for male animals, too, will fight to the death to protect their mates.

All the languages of the world are not sufficient to express the filth of polygamy. It makes of man a beast, of woman, a trembling slave. It destroys the fireside, makes virtue an outcast, takes from human speech its sweetest words, and leaves the heart a den, where crawl and hiss the slimy serpents of most loathsome lust. … The marriage of the one man to the one woman is the citadel and fortress of civilization. Without this, woman becomes the prey and slave of lust and power, and man goes back to savagery and crime.

So proclaims the great agnostic orator of the 19th century, Robert Ingersoll, in his meditation Some Mistakes of Moses.

Did you know that the Bible allow you to sell your daughter? Exodus 21:7-11 sets out the conditions:

If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed [bought back]. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.

Although God promises prosperity to those who obey him, sometimes an Israelite would become so poor that he would have to sell his children. (Side question: What do you make of that? Do you think people are poor because they are bad?) Anyway, such dire circumstances did arise and Exodus 21 gives God’s instructions.

Paul Copan, whose book, Is God a Moral Monster?, has been the subject of the last several posts, is quick to point out that this passage only says, “If a man sells his daughter….” It is a law for how to deal with “specific examples that don’t necessarily present best-case scenarios.” That’s true: the passage does not command anyone to sell his daughter, nor does it come out and endorse the idea of doing so. However, it does endorse (even command) how the transaction is to go down given that it has been decided. Those of us who take moral objection to the Bible should not complain about the “if” situation, but we have every right to object to the “then” part that follows.

So what “then” is in store for the daughter in this passage? Are we talking servant-with-benefits — a sort of prostitution with the cover of another job — or an honorable state of matrimony?

If your husband were to accuse you of cheating on him, would you be willing to rely on this test to reveal the truth?

The priest shall bring [the suspected adulteress] and have her stand before the Lord. Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband … may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell….”

Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”

…[The priest] is to have the woman drink the water. If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, … her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children. (Abridged from Numbers 5:11-31)

If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, you’ve seen this Bible passage before:

When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess … you must destroy [the inhabitants] totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. (Deuteronomy 7:1-2)

Or this:

…in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them … as the Lord your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 20:16-18)

Do those sound like commands to commit genocide?

Even most Christians would say they do. In fact, during my church-going days I heard more than one sermon that spiritualized these passages by saying, “Just as God commanded Israel to completely wipe out the Canaanites, so we must completely remove sin from our lives. Just as any Canaanites that were allowed to live might one day tempt Israel to idolatry, so any sin that we tolerate in our lives could one day prove to be our undoing.”

Jephthah is a minor player in the Bible who reveals a major aspect of God’s character.

Although he eventually rose to become judge of Israel for six years, he had a very rough start in life. According to Judges 11, he was the son of a prostitute, and his father’s “legitimate” sons drove him out of the house so he would not share their inheritance.

The Bible says he “fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a gang of scoundrels gathered around him and followed him.” Nice start: eh? Outcast son of a prostitute and leader of a gang of thugs, probably by the time he was a teenager.

His leadership qualities and tough-guy reputation were noticed and eventually the elders from his town asked him to return and lead them in battle against the Ammonites.

He tried to reason with the Ammonites, but they wouldn’t listen to him. It was at this point that “the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah” and he “advanced against the Ammonites.”